Indian guru follower Anand Sheela arrested after German TV show

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's former spokeswoman is freed because a Swiss court
already convicted her in 1999

The Oregonian/January 22, 2000By Jeanie Senior and Dave Hogan

German police picked up Anand Sheela in a town near Frankfort, Germany, last
week after she appeared on a television show to mark the 10th anniversary of
the death of her former mentor, Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Sheela was quickly released, however, because the Interpol warrant for her
arrest had been canceled.

Sheela, who was the Indian guru's outspoken and flamboyant spokeswoman
during the bhagwan's tumultuous years in Oregon, is no longer wanted by the
United States for plotting to kill a federal prosecutor, because the case
was turned over to Swiss justice last year.

A Swiss court convicted her of the conspiracy charge in February 1999 and
sentenced her to time already served, which means that Sheela no longer has
to fear arrest on outstanding U.S. warrants when she leaves her adopted
country.

It was unclear Friday why the Justice Department was so slow to spread the
word about the February 1999 conviction. "It's a misstep on the Department
of Justice's part and a misstep on our responsibility to get the information
out to the public," said spokesman John Russell.

Charles Turner, the target of the plot, who retired in 1993 after 11 years'
service as Oregon's U.S. attorney and now lives in Washington state, never
received a copy of the Swiss judgment.

And in Portland, FBI spokesman Gordon Compton was still saying Wednesday
that the warrant for Sheela's arrest remained in place. On Friday, he
corrected himself, saying the warrant was no longer in effect but that it
apparently had remained erroneously on a law enforcement database -- which
led to Sheela's being detained last week in Germany.

Sheela, who just returned to Switzerland Friday from a vacation in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, said, "I travel all over without any problems."
Turner said Sheela might have problems returning to the United States
because of her felony convictions.

Sheela served three years in prison for assault, attempted murder, arson,
wiretapping and causing a food poisoning epidemic in The Dalles that made
750 people sick. She was released from prison in 1988 and deported.
Two years later a federal grand jury indicted Sheela and six other members
of the commune on conspiracy charges in a plot to kill Turner. Evidence in
the case showed that Rajneeshee plotters, concerned about the federal
prosecutor's ongoing criminal investigation into their Oregon commune and
the sect's machinations, staked out Turner's house in 1985, bought guns
illegally and planned where and how they would kill him. Sheela took the
lead in the conspiracy.

Two members of the plot were extradited from England and tried on the
charges; Sheela was the widow of a Swiss citizen by then and immune to
extradition.

The arrangement to try Sheela in Switzerland on the U.S. indictment "was
almost without precedent, I'm told," said Baron C. Sheldahl, an assistant
U.S. attorney in Portland. "The Swiss would not extradite (Sheela), and they
agreed to try her in Switzerland if we would supply them with the evidence."
The Swiss proceeding, in a court in the Canton of Basel, relied on evidence
gathered by the federal investigators and federal court transcripts that had
been translated into German. Sheela was found guilty of the equivalent Swiss
charge.

The Swiss court did not impose a sentence in addition to one Sheela received
more than a decade ago in a federal court on the earlier charges, but Sheela
was ordered to pay 15,325 Swiss francs, a share of court costs, which
amounts to just less than $9,655 U.S., less than half the total cost.
The February 1999 sentence was mitigated, according to the Swiss judgment,
"because a relatively long period of time has passed since the crime was
committed in 1985 and because (Sheela) has been conducting herself well
since then."

Sheela, now Sheela Birnstiel, is a Swiss citizen and the owner and operator
of two nursing homes.

In a telephone interview Friday morning, Sheela said she thinks a Rajneeshee
from Cologne who appeared on the television program with her tipped off
officials. Police released Sheela about two or three hours later, she said,
after she presented a copy of the Swiss judgment to police and a flurry of
faxes and telephone calls were exchanged.

Until the judgment was entered, Sheela essentially was confined to
Switzerland, because she risked arrest and extradition if she crossed the
border. Switzerland has no extradition treaty with the United States.
Sheela's conviction leaves unresolved the charges against only two of the
seven co-conspirators named in the 1990 conspiracy-to-kill indictment.
According to the Swiss judgment, extradition is pending for South African
Ann Phyllis McCarthy, also known as Yoga Vidya. In 1991, a German court
refused to extradite Catherine Jane Stubbs Storck, also known as Shanti
Bhadra, an Australian married to a German and living in Germany.

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